Theories of Aggression in Social Psychology

think about a time when you got angry and i don't mean to just a time when you're just a little ticked off at a co-worker or annoyed with someone in traffic i mean think about a time when you were really angry if you can't think of someone who got really angry at you anger is a common human emotion but it can spiral out of control very quickly anger over a parking ticket could quickly turn into a broken mirror a simple dispute at the bar could turn into a brawl wearing the wrong jersey at the wrong place could actually become dangerous but why does this happen why do we let ourselves get so aggressive sometimes even over small things these moments of extreme anger may feel uncontrollable sometimes people black out due to anger and commit acts that they would not have otherwise committed in a calmer state there are certain states that allow passion to actually be a defense strategy in court and is this human nature or something that can be controlled and done away with well there isn't just one answer psychologists have three main theories of aggression that attempt to explain why we become aggressive and whether that behavior can actually be changed these theories include the instinct theory of aggression the frustration aggression theory and something called social learning theory this video is going to briefly touch on all three of these theories of aggression where they come from and how they fit into our everyday behaviors and attitudes so first off let's get into the instinct theory of aggression the first theory of aggression goes back to the days of sigmund freud freud's theory on behavior changed over time at first he believed that all behaviors stemmed from arrows the life instinct these were the instincts that kept us alive and wanting to reproduce however in 1920 he wrote that the life instinct couldn't just explain all of the urges of our behavior that humans display see aggression doesn't always fit into our desire to stay alive and keep others alive so in beyond the pleasure principle freud wrote about thanatos this was the name he gave to something he called the death instinct the death instinct helped to explain why humans become aggressive why they engage in harmful behaviors or why they seek to recreate past traumas freud believed that these two instincts arrows and thanatos exist together in every human mind and that all of the behaviors stem from the balance of these two instincts now this may explain why we take out anger on others even if this anger or aggression is initially directed inward eros overpowers thanatos in an effort to keep ourselves alive the aggression is then directed outwards so what did freud propose that we'd do about these instincts well not much he believed that there wasn't much use in trying to quell aggression when it comes from an innate instinct that is deeply embedded in the human mind his proposal focused more on structuring society in a way that kept communities small in order to protect the community strategies would be devised so aggressive behaviors could be focused outside of the community protecting all the inside members next up we have something called frustration aggression theory even if you can't remember the last time you were aggressive with someone i can guarantee you you can remember a time in which someone was frustrated with you frustration is a common human emotion that comes up when someone or something is holding us back from reaching a goal the goal could be as simple as finishing an essay or as complicated as answering life's most profound questions so the frustration aggression theory simply states that aggression stems from frustration frustration is likely to turn into aggression but it doesn't have to that person has higher levels of self-awareness or better self-control so without going too in depth on this theory let's go over a study on frustration aggression theory aggression doesn't have to be directly used against the thing that a person is frustrated about once the goal is achieved and the frustration subsides the aggression may still be present in one of the earliest studies on frustration aggression theory children were placed in front of a wire screen on the other side of that screen were some toys and while the children could see the toys the toys were just out of reach they couldn't play with them now this was likely frustrating for the children who wanted to play with the toys however once the wire barrier was removed and the children were actually able to play with these toys researchers noticed that their play was more aggressive than when the barrier had not been in the place initially and there's all kinds of examples in your own life because it's not hard to link moments of aggression to moments of frustration have you ever kicked something or slammed a door just out of frustration these are all aggressive behaviors linking frustration to aggression seems almost like a no-brainer but there is one more theory we need to talk about and it's called social learning theory the last aggression theory comes out of one of the most famous experiments of all time the social learning theory was proposed by albert bandura in the 1960s now bandura is mostly known for his bobo doll experiment which attempted to explain how children actually learn aggression from an early age he proposed that aggression is simply a learned behavior we see other people doing it children exert aggression simply because they're imitating whatever they have seen so here's a quick overview of how the experiment went down children were put into a room with an adult some toys and a large bobo doll and if you don't know what it is a boba doll is one of those like inflatable clowns that always bounces straight back up whenever you hit it so half of the children in this experiment sat in a room with the adult as the adult gently played with the toys displaying very little aggression the other half however sat in a room with an adult and the adult aggressively hit or kicked the bobo doll some of these adults actually used explicit language or even hit the boba doll over the head with a mallet so what did we find well the children were then separated from the adult and placed in a room alone with more exciting toys and after a few minutes those toys were taken away and purpose to try to upset the children all of the children were then taken to a third room where there was a bobo doll now the children who had observed the aggressive adults were actually more likely to exhibit aggressive behaviors themselves in short children were simply imitating and modeling when they had also kicked hit or were otherwise aggressive towards the bobo doll so it's from this experiment that bandura proposed that aggression is learned not only through positive or negative reinforcement but also through indirect observational learning which basically means just watching someone commit frustration or aggression so as i end this video i want to ask which one do you think is right because one of these theories may make more sense than others or you may think all of them make sense together well right now there's really not a right or wrong answer to the question of why we get aggressive frustration could have easily played a part in the bobo doll experiment along with a child's death instincts but that's the fun of studying psychology there's always more to learn and more questions to answer i want to thank you so much for watching this video on the theories of aggression and if you have any questions at all feel free to leave a comment below also i want to encourage you to check out the other videos in my social psychology series i've learned a lot about how the human mind works and i would love to share it with you thanks for watching

Channel: Practical Psychology

Views: 108,302

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Id: SNWW-pPmTsI

Length: 6min 48sec (408 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021